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Gitmo Prison Library

The prison library at Guantanamo Bay detention camp is strange. When I think about libraries, I think about the highest sense of freedom. Librarians are generally against censorship, and libraries provide information free and clear of use prohibitions.

Not so at Gitmo. "The prison library is housed in a prefabricated building behind chain-link fencing and razor wire inside Camp Delta, an older, largely disused wing of the complex. [I]ts patrons may not browse the stacks. Instead, the chief librarian, a civilian who asks to be identified as “Milton” for security reasons, or an aide fills plastic bins with about 50 books and takes them to each cellblock once a week. If they obey prison rules, the 166 detainees may peer at the spines through the slots in their doors and check out two titles at a time, or make specific requests.The library has about 18,000 books — roughly 9,000 titles — the bulk of which are in Arabic, along with a smaller selection of periodicals, DVDs and video games."

"Books are screened out if they include too much profanity, anti-American or extremist themes, or too much sex and violence." Although 'Milton' did note that “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” made it through the filter (so did 1984). But some John Grisham novels did not.

After recent news that some John Grisham novels were banned, Grisham shared the story of one of his fans detained at Gitmo.

Some of the prisoners have been detained for over a decade with no end in sight. At least they get this library amenity if they follow prison rules. So I guess this doesn't apply if they don't eat. And I'm not sure that the idealistic nature of a library (see beginning of post) matters in this case. Even if there was access to information about laws for the prisoners, many of them have never been charged with a crime. That makes it difficult to fight the nature of your detention. The sensory deprivation might come in handy while reading "The Odyssey," however.

If you would like to see more of the collection, after a visit to the Gitmo library, several reporters posted photos on http://gitmobooks.tumblr.com.

The current version of Standard 601(3)(a) was developed during the Comprehensive Review as a method of involving a law library in the process of strategic planning required of a law school. It was envisioned that the planning and assessment taking place for a law school (under what was then Standard 203) would incorporate the work done by the library under this new Standard. To ensure that incorporation, it was decided that a written assessment should be completed by the library. However, when the requirement for strategic planning for a law school was removed during a later phase of the Comprehensive Review, no change was made to the new Standard 601. As a result, the library community has been left…

Law libraries are in the information business. To act as superior guides to this information, we must also be in the people business. We must be concerned with the people who seek our information. And we must be concerned with the people who guide those seekers to the information (i.e., our staff).

Contrary to popular belief, it's not easy to be a staff person in the rigid hierarchy of an academic law library. Particularly at a time when law libraries are facing increased budget pressures that require staff to do much more with much less. This is especially challenging with longtime staff who have seen their jobs change dramatically since they were hired. Many of these folks were not formally trained in librarianship, and they may be resistant to the flexibility needed in today's law library.

Given these challenges, how do we motivate our staff to be the very best guides to our information?

To that end, there was an enlightening program at the AALL Annual Conference in 2013 t…

As we further consider how to train future lawyers for the Algorithmic Society and develop the quality of thinking, listening, relating, collaborating, and learning that will define smartness in this new age, law schools must reach beyond their storied walls.

In law, we must got beyond talking about algorithmic implications to actually help shape algorithmic performance. We need lawyers and programmers to work together to create a sound "machine learning corpus." There's potential for an entirely new subfield to emerge if given the right support. With many law school attached to major research universities, it's a great place to start this cross-pollination and interdisciplinary work.

This type of interdisciplinary work would help to satisfy the career aspirations of advanced-degree seekers but also the wishes of many college presidents, deans, and faculty members who see an interdisciplinary professional education as a path to greater relevance, higher enrollments,…